Book Description
In a small provincial city, Peter lives with his long-suffering Aunt Anne and his eccentric Uncle Leo, and works in a bookshop called Brightfount’s, which he describes as a ‘shabby outpost of literacy’. Cutting the apron strings, he moves into a bed-sit and composes these witty diaries, in which he includes amusing remarks about publishers, authors, booksellers and customers, a revelation about his dotty uncle, and his efforts to find ‘a suitable girl’.

About the Author
Brian Wilson Aldiss was born in East Dareham, Norfolk, in 1925 and has written over 40 novels and over 300 short stories, making him one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He worked as a Bookseller in Oxford between 1947 and 1956 during which he wrote his first novel The Brightfount Diaries. His first work of science fiction was Non-Stop (1958) and he won the Most Promising New Author award at the SF convention the following year. At this time his work was characterised by innovative literary techniques and a high sexual content. In 1962 Hothouse won a Hugo award given by the World Science Fiction Society and in the seventies he explored the experiences of a young soldier in The Horatio Stubbs Saga novels. With Frankenstein Unbound and Moreau’s Other Island he paid tribute to two founders of SF - Mary Shelley and H.G. Wells. By the time of the release of the well received Hellinconia sequence he had become one of the most prominent British SF writers rivalling such fellow authors as J.G.Ballard and Michael Moorcock Since 1961 Aldiss has edited anthologies including SF Horizons and has regularly reviewed for the TLS as well as numerous newspapers. Other works include a history of SF, Billion Year Spree, an autobiography Twinkling of an Eye and some poetry. In 1999 he became A Grand Master at the Nebula awards given by the SF and Fantasy Writers Guild for his lifetime achievements in SF writing.